A flexible electronic asset management system using Ethernet connectivity
for electronic devices is presented. The invention enables multiple
electronic devices to be controlled, monitored, and accessed from any
browser connected to a computer network. A flattened stack approach is
used to process network packet data. The flattened stack approach treats
the network packet as a single string of data and uses the first few
bytes of information to decide whether to drop or process the incoming
data thus providing for faster network traffic processing. Since the
lowest layer of the OSI stack has knowledge of what applications are
active in the upper layers, the flattened stack allows the packet to be
discarded at the earliest possible point so no processing power is
wasted. The flattened stack also organizes its check/processing based on
the raw data stream thus minimizing buffer requirements and providing for
easier implementation into hardware.